The Nova Open: "OMG, I am so going to blog about that!"

Well, that's it, the NOVA Open 2011 is over. It was a great time, and I will not hesitate to participate next year. We have so many tales to impart, tales of woe and triumph (mostly woe), but I am so crushed by fatigue that for now a summary will have to suffice. More will follow after tomorrow's drive back to Boston. Hopefully this will be enough to hold back the ghosts that live in the internets:

I couldn't be happier with my overall performance--for the weekend, four wins and four losses--which to me was like taking the whole event. A secondary, and more personally satisfying, accomplishment was my success against tournament Space Wolf builds. Three of my four victories were against that recently displaced "newest, most bestest army" (the fourth was against IG). I am happy to report the space marine variant that I appreciate least crushes quite nicely beneath the thunder hammers of Deathwing terminators. It was nice to see that Space Wolves are not necessarily the auto-win army that 40k webmonkeys often make them out to be, and also that my own outdated Dark Angels can be competitive even in the current environment. My four losses were to Demons, Orks, Grey Knights (goddam psybolt rifleman dreads...), and Dark Eldar. Not a huge surprise; they are armies that regularly give my Deathwing problems, or that I encounter infrequently and did not know quite how to deal with (more in a later post on my game against Ciaran from the Overlords, and his massively kill-tastic horde of hellions).

I was a bit disconcerted by the simplistic judging of army appearance. The judges seemed to completely discount the effort that goes in to techniques such as airbrushing, zenithal highlighting, and wet blending, instead favoring the classic GW style. Mark and I worked long and hard on our armies, so for the judge to not look at the display boards at all, or to ask "what's special about that?" when examining my scratch built chaplain was discouraging.

There was a general air of disorder that surrounded the event. It was irritating at times, but I am told things are greatly improved from last year, so I really shouldn't complain. I had a great time, and I hope that Mike Brandt, and all the hearty souls he dragoons into service on the NOVA staff will continue to smooth out the wrinkles, and provide a fantastic 40k event.